In some surgical procedures, surgeons need to access a target site within the patient's body. To access the desired surgical site, the surgeon may employ open surgery or minimally invasive techniques. Open surgery techniques typically require large incisions and high amounts of tissue displacement to gain access to the surgical target site. Due to the large incisions and high amounts of tissue displacements, patients who undergo open surgery usually require a relatively long recovery time. Minimally invasive techniques, in contrast, involve significantly smaller incisions and require less tissue displacement. As a consequence, patients who undergo minimally invasive procedure have significantly shorter recovery time than patients who undergo opens surgery.
In view of the advantages of minimally invasive procedure over open surgery, the surgical access systems have been developed to access a surgical target site using a minimally invasive approach. Surgical access retractors and systems typically displace or retract tissue to establish an operative corridor to a surgical target site. These retractors also maintain the operative corridor while the surgeon performs the desired surgical procedure.
Surgeons have employed known surgical access retractors and systems in different kinds of surgeries. In spinal surgeries, for example, spinal access systems can be used to retract tissue in order to perform posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF), anterior lumber interbody fusion (ALIF), or any other suitable spinal approach and surgery.
Although a number of surgical access retractors and system have been developed over the years, a need exists for improved spinal access systems and retractors capable of, among other things, displacing tissue in different directions.